'On The Road' Luggage Tag

Loving this!

£6.99 on Amazon.

Links for the next meeting - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Links on Rebecca Skloot's own site, including videos and audio

Adam Curtis' blog on the BBC site, which has the full length 1990s documentary that is referred to a lot in the book

The Lacks Family website

The Henrietta Lacks Foundation, set up by Rebecca Skloot to help the descendants of Henrietta Lacks through education and healthcare payments.

(Donate here)

(Or, donate directly to the family here)

A review on the Literary Corner Cafe blog

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating book for people interested in scientific or medical research, but its real achievement lies in it’s humane – and deeply human – look at both Mrs. Lacks and her descendants. It’s a wake up call to the medical community to remember that while they may be working with highly advanced technology and science, there’s a human being – a suffering human being, with people who love him or her – at the bottom of it all."

A review in The Guardian

"It would have been better to trust the story and tell it in as straightforward a way as possible. Skloot's final discussion of the ethics of the use of human tissue is followed by nine pages of acknowledgments that are more than usually fatuous and self-regarding, and the author's determination to write herself into the story distracts the reader from the dense factual background. But The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks succeeds despite itself: it is a fascinating, harrowing and necessary book, marred only slightly by the fact that the author wishes to be considered a heroine for writing it."

Plus, a bit off topic, David Simon's article about a contemporary woman living in Baltimore, the actress Felicia 'Snoop' Pearson

"In an essay published two years ago in Time magazine, the writers of The Wire made the argument that we believe the war on drugs has devolved into a war on the underclass, that in places like West and East Baltimore, where the drug economy is now the only factory still hiring and where the educational system is so crippled that the vast majority of children are trained only for the corners, a legal campaign to imprison our most vulnerable and damaged citizens is little more than amoral. And we said then that if asked to serve on any jury considering a non-violent drug offense, we would move to nullify that jury's verdict and vote to acquit. Regardless of the defendant, I still believe such a course of action would be just in any case in which drug offenses—absent proof of violent acts—are alleged."

Name your favourite book, and donate to the Ministry of Stories

The Ministry of Stories is a reading & writing centre for young people, based in Hoxton.

Modelled on Dave Eggers' Pirate Supplies Store in San Francisco, it "provides a free space for fresh writing by young people. Here in Hoxton we provide workshops and one-to-one mentoring. The services are provided by volunteers: local writers, artists and teachers, all giving their time and talent for free.

The MoS is inspired by young people, and aims to inspire them to transform their lives through writing. We work closely with schools, supporting the work of teachers, but our great benefit is that we provide one-to-one mentoring for young people to enjoy imaginative stories, improve language skills, increase abilities in communication, add to social and educational confidence."

To donate money through Just giving, visit this page and donate the amount that your favourite book costs. Stephen Fry picked one of our previous reads, The Confederacy of Dunces as his favourite, so presumably donated £8.99.

Donate - it could change someone's life.

The Waterstones / Grazia quiz for World Book Day

On Saturday 3 of us went to Waterstones in Piccadilly to take part in the book quiz for World Book Day, sponsored by Grazia. (Grazia run their own book club in the magazine).

It was interesting to see so many other book groups in one place, and it was great to see so much free booze on the table!

The quiz was about 7 rounds (characters, pictures, first lines, missing vowels etc) and was great fun.

David Nicholls was there, and we managed to ask a couple of quick questions about the film of One Day. ;-)

We didn't win, but we didn't come last either, and in our defence there were only 3 of us...

'Room' discussed at Slate.com

Thanks to Kelly for sending this link to Slate, where there's a podcast discussion of our April book Room by Emma Donoghue.

Or you can play it on the site. - the link again!

Links for the next meeting - One Day by David Nicholls

The site for the book:

(Including Emma's mix tape for Dexter, for anyone who has Spotify)

A reader's guide from the American website

"3. In his unsent letter Dexter writes, “I think you’re scared of being happy. . . . that you actually get a kick out of being disappointed and under-achieving, because it’s easier. . . .”[p. 42]. How do Dexter’s insights into Emma compare to her own? Is he more perceptive about her than he is about himself? Does Emma underestimate her talents and potential? Despite its carefree tone, does Dexter’s letter betray certain doubts or misgivings about himself?"

A review from The Guardian, at the time of publication:

"But the most noticeable feature of these protagonists and their friendship is their extraordinarily high laughs-per-page ratio. Nicholls's first novel, Starter for Ten, was gagtastic and, in a couple of its setpieces, successfully invited comparison with Lucky Jim. His second, The Understudy, was very, very funny. But One Day is funnier still: the headmaster's beard that becomes a balaclava, Dexter's bubbly co-presenter who talks in capitals and who "would start a letter of condolence with the word 'Wahey!'", Ian's "tracky botts", Ian's ring-in-the-calamari proposal, Ian's relentless patter - indeed, just about every sentence involving Ian."

A 5 Star review on Amazon:

"One of the best novels I`ve ever read. The characters are likeable and you can`t help yourself willing them to get together. The concept is fantastic; You never really know what happens immediately after the end of each chapter, as the next one takes place exactly one year later. I`m not entirely sure whether this should be classed as a romantic comedy; It`s a novel about relationships that should appeal to both men and women. Sure, Emma Mayhew comes out with a lot of amusing one-liners, but that`s not really what One Day is about. There`s no sloppy romanticism here either, no sex scenes described in elaborate euphemisms. This book is about realistic characters feeling the sort of emotions we have all felt. All human life is here in this novel and it`s utterly compelling.

I`m not usually one to get emotional over books and films, but I found myself close to tears at some points in One Day. One page in particular, I had to go back and re-read several times, it affected me so much."

A 1 Star review on Amazon

"I'm flabbergasted by the glowing reviews - the book is not that good. The main strength of the book is its stucture - truly innovative whereby the characters are revisited on the same date every year. However, that's the most interesting/exciting thing about the book. The characters themselves are two-dimensional bores. Emma is snippy and wet, while Dexter is a caricature of arrogance and privilege. And they don't even have very exciting lives to sustain any reader interest. My main objection to the book is the idleness of the writer. Once he had the structure in place, he appeared to just spew out lazy scenes and put very little effort into developing tension or character. At times, the writing was very sloppy and I nearly threw the book across the room at several things that a good editor should have spotted: eg, who wears a moleskin suit in July? Why on July 15 would Dexter be catching up on the latest news from Wimbledon, when the tournament usually ends at least a week earlier? And why the constant references to Mayhem plc - if the company had been a plc (ie a listed company), then Dexter would have been considerably richer and certainly wouldn't have been able to just wind up the company on a whim without a nasty backlash from shareholders (which is what a plc has). No doubt the author is a fine scriptwriter, but the limits of his craft show time and again on the printed page. I'm sure the story will make an amusing mini-series/film, but I suspect the main enjoyment will be derived from the visuals of the transformation from late 80s to present day rather than any engagement in the story."

& finally - the cast for the film, coming out later this year.

Anne Hathaway as Emma? Jim Sturgess as Dexter? Rafe Spall as Ian?

Copycat Covers

The covers of books say so much (for example the 'Dragon Tattoo' books, or 'One Day', which we're reading this month, but more and more books seem to be using similar pictures and themes on the covers - for example these two, which use the same stock photo, but cropped and coloured differently:

You can see a bigger collection of similar examples here, and here is link to other examples where the picture is different, but the theme is very similar (a spade in the ground, a chair in an empty room). Just how little time to publishers take over the cover design,,?